A's Have the Best Rookies in Baseball

The A's may not be in playoff contention with less than a month until the All-Star break, but their future is certainly looking bright.

A's 2023 first-round pick Jacob Wilson (No. 6 overall) has taken the league by storm and is keeping up with the best player in baseball, Aaron Judge, in several categories. Wilson is tied with Judge in hits (101) entering play on Friday, is batting .359 to Judge's .366, and has three fewer doubles.

Wilson is the overwhelming favorite to win American League Rookie of the Year, and rightfully so. As a rookie, Wilson is putting up veteran-esque numbers. He is batting .359 with a .908 OPS, 24 extra base hits, and 39 RBI. All while only striking out 19 times and walking 16 in 302 plate appearances. He's a contact machine.

Another A's other rookie, 2024 first-round pick Nick Kurtz (No. 4 overall), has started to tap into his power recently. After starting his rookie campaign without an extra base hit through his first 13 games, now, Kurtz can't stop hitting them.

Since coming back off the IL in June, Kurtz is hitting .270 with a .965 OPS, four home runs, and 25 total bases in nine games. Oh, and he has hit two walk-offs, with three go-ahead home runs, in that span. He's also hit four home runs in the past five games in the ninth inning or later, so he has a knack for the dramatic. After Thursday's walk-off shot, manager Mark Kotsay called him an "alpha."

The A's last three drafts have been very good, on paper, with a lot of young talent yet to debut. However, for the two main players who have debuted in Wilson and Kurtz, they are already making their presence felt at the big league level and have adujsted to the speed of the game fairly quickly.

Back in 2017, when the A's were gearing up to compete again, they had two eventual cornerstone players begin their rookie campaigns in Matt Chapman and Matt Olson. Now, the A's have two, what seem to be, future cornerstone players in the middle of their rookie campaigns.

While Wilson is undoubtedly the best rookie in baseball, Kurtz has played fewer than 40 games this season after a late-April call-up and a brief stint on the IL, so his overall stats on the season haven't put him on the leaderboards, but the performances he's having on a nightly basis sure make it look as though he'll be a key player for the A's long-term.

While Wilson and Kurtz get all the attention, and it is very much deserved, the A's have two other rookies who are contributing as well.

Outfielder Denzel Clarke may be the best defensive outfielder in baseball. With +10 Outs Above Average in 24 games, Clarke is only behind Chicago Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong by three OAA while not having nearly as many games to accumulate those stats. PCA has played 48 more games.

Clarke has won MLB's "Electric Play of the Week" three times in a row, with his best catch coming last week when he almost jumped over the center field wall to rob a home run.

Max Muncy, another A's rookie, is batting .250 with a .785 OPS in June and improving his defense at third base. Since he was recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas, he has displayed more power than he did in his first stint with the team to begin the season, having hit four home runs this month.

The A's young core of players is extremely special: Wilson, Kurtz, Lawrence Butler, Clarke, Muncy, and the list goes on and will get longer as players debut. Currently waiting down on the farm are a slew of young pitchers that have been throwing the ball well and will be knocking on the door shortly.

Once the A's sort out some of the team's flaws, this team is looking like they could be a special group of players.